Between Profession and Politics 71
community up until today. In their memoirs, written and published in the
late 1990s to early 2000s, as a rule, radiological doctors practically did not
touch upon actual topics of the Soviet history of the late 1940s or early 1950s,
which at that time were actively discussed in the mass media, historical journalism, and by the general public. Nevertheless, even taking into account the
fact that the texts of our protagonists are full of “the utmost silence,” they
contain unique evidence of the era and its understanding.
The central problem of the postwar period – the frustrated hopes for the
liberalization of the regime and the new wave of repressions 19 – is occasionally reflected in the recollections of the physicians, but is also present in the
texts of different genres, for example, in an interview with Baisogolov and
Gusʹkova and in Gusʹkova’s popular scientific work, “The Nuclear Industry
in the Country through the Eyes of a Doctor,” published many years after the
first public statements.
The texts of Baisogolov and Gusʹkova testify to the fact that the professional development of the group of specialists in radiation medicine and
biology was closely connected with the political processes that took place
in the postwar USSR. Thus, an integral element of their “entry into the
profession” was coercion. After completing her residency, Gusʹkova was
placed under “distribution,” meaning that the Soviet authorities were free
to send her where they saw fit. She remembered: “I had no desire to go
to Chelyabinsk, I did not want to change the present fate. I worked in
Sverdlovsk, in the Clinic of Nervous Diseases, and was already preparing
my thesis. At that time, the ‘recruiters’ arrived… I resisted as much as I
could and finally agreed to go only to the Urals – since we have to deal
with ‘nuclear affairs.’” 20 Gusʹkova does not explain who the “recruiters”
were, to whom she refers, or how she was persuaded to go. Only the words
“resisted as much as I could” hint at coercion, which was an integral component of the experts’ biographies. Like Gusʹkova, Grigorii Baisogolov
was forced to change his professional trajectory. After the war, he intended
to write his PhD thesis in Moscow. Baisogolov went to the South Urals
after a personal conversation with the Deputy Minister of Health of the
USSR, A.I. Burnazian, who promised him every assistance in a future
in interesting scientific work. In the short memoirs, published by local
historians in Ozersk in 2003, Baisogolov noted with bitterness that the
majority of the promises were never fulfilled. 21 Among those who “at the
request of the country” had to “‘throw everything away’ and rush into
the unexplored field of new science – radiobiology” was the future deputy
director of FIB-1, and later its head, Vladimir Lemberg. If it had not been
for the sharp turn of his professional career that brought him to the Plant
No. 817, Lemberg could have, according to Gusʹkova, become a renowned
pathologist. 22
The German physicist Nikolaus Riehl, 23 who worked near Lake Sungul
at Laboratory B, characterizes in his memoirs the different levels of coercion in the expert community of physicists, biologists, and geneticists, of
community up until today. In their memoirs, written and published in the
late 1990s to early 2000s, as a rule, radiological doctors practically did not
touch upon actual topics of the Soviet history of the late 1940s or early 1950s,
which at that time were actively discussed in the mass media, historical journalism, and by the general public. Nevertheless, even taking into account the
fact that the texts of our protagonists are full of “the utmost silence,” they
contain unique evidence of the era and its understanding.
The central problem of the postwar period – the frustrated hopes for the
liberalization of the regime and the new wave of repressions 19 – is occasionally reflected in the recollections of the physicians, but is also present in the
texts of different genres, for example, in an interview with Baisogolov and
Gusʹkova and in Gusʹkova’s popular scientific work, “The Nuclear Industry
in the Country through the Eyes of a Doctor,” published many years after the
first public statements.
The texts of Baisogolov and Gusʹkova testify to the fact that the professional development of the group of specialists in radiation medicine and
biology was closely connected with the political processes that took place
in the postwar USSR. Thus, an integral element of their “entry into the
profession” was coercion. After completing her residency, Gusʹkova was
placed under “distribution,” meaning that the Soviet authorities were free
to send her where they saw fit. She remembered: “I had no desire to go
to Chelyabinsk, I did not want to change the present fate. I worked in
Sverdlovsk, in the Clinic of Nervous Diseases, and was already preparing
my thesis. At that time, the ‘recruiters’ arrived… I resisted as much as I
could and finally agreed to go only to the Urals – since we have to deal
with ‘nuclear affairs.’” 20 Gusʹkova does not explain who the “recruiters”
were, to whom she refers, or how she was persuaded to go. Only the words
“resisted as much as I could” hint at coercion, which was an integral component of the experts’ biographies. Like Gusʹkova, Grigorii Baisogolov
was forced to change his professional trajectory. After the war, he intended
to write his PhD thesis in Moscow. Baisogolov went to the South Urals
after a personal conversation with the Deputy Minister of Health of the
USSR, A.I. Burnazian, who promised him every assistance in a future
in interesting scientific work. In the short memoirs, published by local
historians in Ozersk in 2003, Baisogolov noted with bitterness that the
majority of the promises were never fulfilled. 21 Among those who “at the
request of the country” had to “‘throw everything away’ and rush into
the unexplored field of new science – radiobiology” was the future deputy
director of FIB-1, and later its head, Vladimir Lemberg. If it had not been
for the sharp turn of his professional career that brought him to the Plant
No. 817, Lemberg could have, according to Gusʹkova, become a renowned
pathologist. 22
The German physicist Nikolaus Riehl, 23 who worked near Lake Sungul
at Laboratory B, characterizes in his memoirs the different levels of coercion in the expert community of physicists, biologists, and geneticists, of